{"id":156538,"date":"2025-11-27T23:57:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T23:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/156538\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T23:57:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T23:57:07","slug":"are-you-team-dean-jess-or-logan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/156538\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you Team Dean, Jess, or Logan?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For die-hard Gilmore Girls<\/a> fans, the Great Boyfriend Debate is about more than having a preferred suitor for Alexis Bledel<\/a>‘s Rory Gilmore.\n<\/p>\n

When stating your case for who should have ended up with Stars Hollow\u2019s favorite daughter \u2014 be it Dean Forester (Jared Padalecki<\/a>), Jess Mariano (Milo Ventimiglia<\/a>), or Logan Huntzberger (Matt Czuchry<\/a>) \u2014 your choice isn\u2019t just an opinion. It\u2019s a\u00a0declaration.\n<\/p>\n

Fans watched Rory traverse three major relationships across the series\u2019s seven original seasons. And while Rory\u2019s eventual romantic fate is decided by the series\u2019s end, that doesn\u2019t stop the question from being asked:\u00a0Who should Rory Gilmore have ended up with?\n<\/p>\n

As fans continue to find\u00a0Gilmore Girls\u00a0through streaming services and collector\u2019s DVDs, the question perpetually gets a new life.\n<\/p>\n

For the staunchest fans, what might be painful to admit is that at one point all three of Rory\u2019s beaus were perfect for her, even if the \u201cbest one\u201d is up for debate. But they represented more of a series of mirrors for Rory, revealing something about her journey that she couldn\u2019t discover by herself.\n<\/p>\n

Where do you start when sorting through the details of a beloved series\u2019s most contentious debate? At the beginning, of course.\n<\/p>\n

Team Dean? <\/p>\n

Dean (Jared Padalecki) and Rory (Alexis Bledel) on ‘Gilmore Girls’.<\/p>\n

The WB\/ Greg Schwartz<\/p>\n

In one corner you have Dean \u2014 the impossibly tall, brooding transfer student with dreamy hair and a deep voice.\n<\/p>\n

Introduced in the first episode, the chance meeting between Dean and Rory lined up imperfectly with Rory\u2019s acceptance to the prestigious prep school Chilton.\n<\/p>\n

While Dean was an idyllic first boyfriend (He built her a car! He regularly joined Rory and Lauren Graham<\/a>‘s Lorelai for movie night!), it\u2019s hard to ignore that he represented something Rory would never be: comfortable.\n<\/p>\n

As early as the season 1 episode \u201cThat Damn Donna Reed,\u201d it was clear Dean wanted a wife. And when Rory pushed back, they grew further apart.\n<\/p>\n

In the fan-favorite episode \u201cThey Shoot Gilmores, Don\u2019t They?\u201d Dean ends things, and yet, by the end of the next season, Dean takes Rory\u2019s virginity…in her childhood bedroom…while he\u2019s still married. Yikes indeed.\n<\/p>\n

Perhaps worse, Dean never finds his place along Rory\u2019s promising trajectory, always feeling like their relationship wasn\u2019t in line with her Harvard aspirations. Even Jared Padalecki, who played Dean, has admitted that he\u2019s on Team Jess.\n<\/p>\n

Team Jess? <\/p>\n

Jess (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rory (Alexis Bledel) on ‘Gilmore Girls’.<\/p>\n

WB\/Ron Tom\/Warner Bros\/Everett<\/p>\n

Of course, Team Jess comes with its own complexity.\n<\/p>\n

Jess Mariano, the bad-boy nephew of Luke Danes (Scott Patterson<\/a>), drops into Stars Hollow in season 2 to upend Rory and Dean\u2019s relationship and harass the townspeople to near insanity.\n<\/p>\n

But the leather-jacket-toting, raven-locked dreamboat captured hearts as the misunderstood intellectual who matched Rory\u2019s brilliance, squarely focused on a life of independence for both Rory and himself.\n<\/p>\n

Did that also include Jess endearing himself to Rory before recoiling and ghosting? Sure.\n<\/p>\n

Moody to the point of being cruel, the Jess character is too familiar. He\u2019s somehow the boyfriend your mom warns you about while also being the boyfriend who makes you feel most yourself.\n<\/p>\n

That tracks with Rory\u2019s story. Despite Lorelai wanting success for Rory, it was Jess\u2019s independent spirit and brutishness that often led Rory furthest from her roots. Remember when Jess persuaded Rory to take a bus to New York City, subsequently making her miss Lorelai\u2019s graduation?\n<\/p>\n

Still, Jess remained a favorite. He was the guy with promise, slowly inching his way to fulfilled potential.\n<\/p>\n

Though Jess exited as a series regular at the end of season 3, he continued to periodically appear in Rory\u2019s life to remind her of her own genius. Whether showing up after publishing a book or just to visit Luke, his refrain was consistent \u2014 he believed Rory was a contender until the very end.\n<\/p>\n

Jess wasn\u2019t particularly concerned with keeping Rory so much as he adored her.\n<\/p>\n

Ironically enough, Milo Ventimiglia and Padalecki have been each other\u2019s character\u2019s biggest supporters, with Ventimiglia admitting that he is Team Dean, leaving Rory\u2019s third suitor on an island of his own.\n<\/p>\n

Team Logan? <\/p>\n

Rory (Alexis Bledel) and Logan (Matt Chzuchry) on ‘Gilmore Girls’.<\/p>\n

The WB\/Patrick Ecclesine<\/p>\n

First appearing in season 4, Matt Czuchry\u2019s Logan Huntzberger was Rory\u2019s longest ongoing relationship on the series.\n<\/p>\n

Practically a gift from the upper-class gods, Logan was everything her grandparents wanted for her: wealthy, well-bred and handsome to boot. He also ticked all the boxes of whom Lorelai\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0want for her daughter: privileged, smarmy and entitled.\n<\/p>\n

The heir to a newspaper conglomerate \u2014 an ideal fit for Rory\u2019s journalistic aspirations \u2014 served as the perfect conduit to show Rory (and, by proxy, Lorelai) what their lives could be in the context of the Gilmore social circle.\n<\/p>\n

But even at her most enamored, Rory quickly realized that a family name and a try-hard attitude weren\u2019t enough for the Hartford elite.\n<\/p>\n

The Huntzbergers had a way of making Rory feel small, fueling some of her worst decisions on the series (see:\u00a0stealing a yacht\u00a0at the tail end of season 5, dropping out of Yale and joining the Daughters of the American Revolution).\n<\/p>\n

All that aside, Logan was the man most committed to locking down Rory.\n<\/p>\n

With a proposal at the series\u2019s end, Logan fought to bring Rory into the Huntzberger fold, despite his family\u2019s disapproval. And Rory never failed to rush to Logan\u2019s side when he was in emotional (or sometimes physical) peril.\n<\/p>\n

For Logan fans, nothing could be more romantic than a rocket ship, a man who calls you Ace and the promise of a happily every after.\n<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something about the options that makes the Great Boyfriend Debate such juicy, timeless fodder. Your choice of suitor is almost like an astrology sign, revealing something about the fans themselves.\n<\/p>\n

In 2024, Kelly Bishop<\/a>, who played Emily Gilmore, responded on TikTok that she\u2019s Team Logan. Even as Ventimiglia pursued\u00a0This Is Us<\/a>\u00a0and Czuchry settled into\u00a0The Good Wife<\/a>, journalists and fans alike still slid in the quick question…But what team are you on?\n<\/p>\n

And maybe it\u2019s not the three guys, but perhaps what they represent for Rory, that keeps the question on the tips of our tongues.\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like these are the\u00a0only\u00a0three men who ever crossed Rory\u2019s path. We\u2019re not talking about Chad Michael Murray<\/a>\u2019s one-dimensional Tristan Dugray, are we? There\u2019s no love for Marty (Wayne Wilcox), the lovable, reliable Yale classmate who seemed most in line with Rory\u2019s upbringing. And don\u2019t get us started on the shadow of a human named Paul (Jack Carpenter) whom Rory dated in\u00a0A Year in the Life<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

We only focus on the big three; the men who highlighted the most relatable evolutions of Rory Gilmore.\n<\/p>\n

The truth is that each of her love interests pulled something specific out of her: for Dean, the innocence of a first love and the rejection of a simple life. For Jess, the rebellious intellectual at Rory\u2019s core and the independence she needed to go it alone. And for Logan, the would-be fate of wealth and privilege that Lorelai so desperately wanted her and Rory to escape.\n<\/p>\n

We love to choose a boyfriend and, by extension, choose our favorite version of Rory. I think the Great Boyfriend Debate is about what, not whom, Rory needed most.\n<\/p>\n

But the struggle remains too fun to give up. Whether debating with a new fan who just finished their first binge or going to the mat with a veteran after a few glasses of wine, everyone believes they know best for Rory Gilmore. May the question remain:\u00a0Who should Rory have ended up with?\n<\/p>\n

At least we can all agree. The answer isn\u2019t Paul.\n<\/p>\n

A version of this story is available in a special print edition of Entertainment Weekly celebrating 25 years of the series. Find Gilmore Girls: The Classic Show Lives On wherever magazines are sold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For die-hard Gilmore Girls fans, the Great Boyfriend Debate is about more than having a preferred suitor for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":["post-156538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}